Passive radio-frequency identification, RFID, tags, which comprise an integrated circuit chip and an RF antenna, are well known and are widely used in asset tracking systems. The antenna performance, and thus the distance over which the RFID tag is able to communicate, can change in response to the surface on which an RFID tag is mounted. In particular, when an RFID tag is mounted on an object having a metal surface the antenna performance deteriorates, and the communication distance reduces. Recently, RFID tags which are capable of operating when mounted on a metal surface have been developed; these are known as ‘mount-on-metal’ RFID tags.
Sterilisation and disinfection of surgical instruments are essential components of infection-control procedures. There is also an increasingly felt need to ensure that no surgical instrument has been missed out from an instrument set required for a particular surgical procedure, misplaced during surgery or the sterilisation and disinfection process, or left inside a patient. It is therefore desirable to be able to track surgical instruments during use, and from the operating theatre, through the sterilisation and disinfection process, and back to the operating theatre. Many hospitals are also being required to maintain records of which surgical instruments have been used on which patients over the lifetime of the instrument, which can be several years.
The use of RFID tags for asset tracking of surgical instruments has been proposed, for example the RFID tag suitable for mounting on surgical instruments described in WO 2013/020944 and the ORLocate® RFID tag system provided by Haldor Advanced Technologies Ltd. However, the RFID tags in these systems are relatively large, so they can impede the use of a surgical instrument by a surgeon, and typically they must be read individually or in small groups on a special tray.